Re: Silicon Motion VGA controllers and PPC architecture

Re: Silicon Motion VGA controllers and PPC architecture

[Laurent Mohin]

----- Forwarded by Laurent Mohin/STE/Global on 13/11/03 09:16 -----


Laurent Mohin
13/11/03 08:25


        To:     llandre <r&d@wawnet.biz>
        cc:     "'Mark Powell'" <medp@primagraphics.co.uk>
        Subject:        Re: Silicon Motion VGA controllers and PPC architecture

Hi,

We do use a SMI712 chip from Silicon Motion on an embedded 405GP board and
we have made it work without to more difficulties. The only real problem
you would be faced to is little endian manipulation, as always with this
kind of chip.
I also agree with Mark Powell concerning documentation which is very poor
and only describe registers contents, not the way to initialize the chip.

You will find a driver for it on u-boot and also a framebuffer driver in
Linux (at least in 2.4.20 if I remember well). You will also find an
accelerated driver for Xfree (I haven't tested it yet).

Laurent MOHIN
Acterna






llandre <r&d@wawnet.biz>
Sent by: owner-linuxppc-embedded@lists.linuxppc.org
12/11/03 17:52


        To:     linuxppc-embedded@lists.linuxppc.org
        cc:
        Subject:        Silicon Motion VGA controllers and PPC architecture



I'm looking for a VGA controller to use with an embedded PPC405-based
system.
I had a look at the Silicon Motion chips (712/722) and they seem very
suited for embedded applications.
Unfortunately the techical support claims that these chips, because the
presence of x86 BIOS, support only the x86 architecture. Anybody can
confirm this?

Thanks in advance,

llandre


** Sent via the linuxppc-embedded mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/

Re: Silicon Motion VGA controllers and PPC architecture

[Mark Powell]

Laurent Mohin wrote:

>You will find a driver for it on u-boot and also a framebuffer driver in
>Linux (at least in 2.4.20 if I remember well). You will also find an
>accelerated driver for Xfree (I haven't tested it yet).
>
>
Xfree driver doesn't work without BIOS, it uses BIOS calls to program
video mode etc.
There is code in the driver to do the same jobs but it doesn't work.

I didn't know there was a driver in U-boot - that is interesting,
thanks. I have been using an earlier version of PPCBoot.
Mark

--
Mark Powell, Senior Software Engineer, Primagraphics Limited
New Cambridge House, Litlington, nr.Royston, Herts, SG8 0SS, UK
Tel. +44 1763 852222, Fax. 853324, http://www.primagraphics.co.uk


** Sent via the linuxppc-embedded mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/

RE: Silicon Motion VGA controllers and PPC architecture

[Steven Blakeslee]

I've had success with a sensoray card connected to a 405.

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Powell [mailto:medp@primagraphics.co.uk]
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2003 12:19 PM
To: llandre
Cc: linuxppc-embedded@lists.linuxppc.org
Subject: Re: Silicon Motion VGA controllers and PPC architecture



llandre wrote:

>
> I'm looking for a VGA controller to use with an embedded PPC405-based
> system.
> I had a look at the Silicon Motion chips (712/722) and they seem very
> suited for embedded applications.
> Unfortunately the techical support claims that these chips, because the
> presence of x86 BIOS, support only the x86 architecture. Anybody can
> confirm this?

We have used the 3DM/3DM+ and ran into this problem.
There is no documentation on how to initialise the chip and the
documentation that there is contains little description or explanation
and is just plain wrong in places.

--
Mark Powell, Senior Software Engineer, Primagraphics Limited
New Cambridge House, Litlington, nr.Royston, Herts, SG8 0SS, UK
Tel. +44 1763 852222, Fax. 853324, http://www.primagraphics.co.uk


** Sent via the linuxppc-embedded mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/

Silicon Motion VGA controllers and PPC architecture

[llandre]

I'm looking for a VGA controller to use with an embedded PPC405-based system.
I had a look at the Silicon Motion chips (712/722) and they seem very
suited for embedded applications.
Unfortunately the techical support claims that these chips, because the
presence of x86 BIOS, support only the x86 architecture. Anybody can
confirm this?

Thanks in advance,

llandre


** Sent via the linuxppc-embedded mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/

Re: Silicon Motion VGA controllers and PPC architecture

[Mark Powell]

llandre wrote:

>
> I'm looking for a VGA controller to use with an embedded PPC405-based
> system.
> I had a look at the Silicon Motion chips (712/722) and they seem very
> suited for embedded applications.
> Unfortunately the techical support claims that these chips, because the
> presence of x86 BIOS, support only the x86 architecture. Anybody can
> confirm this?

We have used the 3DM/3DM+ and ran into this problem.
There is no documentation on how to initialise the chip and the
documentation that there is contains little description or explanation
and is just plain wrong in places.

--
Mark Powell, Senior Software Engineer, Primagraphics Limited
New Cambridge House, Litlington, nr.Royston, Herts, SG8 0SS, UK
Tel. +44 1763 852222, Fax. 853324, http://www.primagraphics.co.uk


** Sent via the linuxppc-embedded mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/

Re: Silicon Motion VGA controllers and PPC architecture

[Wolfgang Denk]

In message <5.1.1.6.0.20031112173538.01bd2e78@dns.struinfo.it> you wrote:
>
> I'm looking for a VGA controller to use with an embedded PPC405-based system.
> I had a look at the Silicon Motion chips (712/722) and they seem very
> suited for embedded applications.
> Unfortunately the techical support claims that these chips, because the
> presence of x86 BIOS, support only the x86 architecture. Anybody can
> confirm this?

The presence of a x86 BIOS is no killing point to use such a board on
a PowerPC system. All you need to do is to run the BIUOS  code  using
some  sort  of x86 emulator. Such a beast is for example available in
U-Boot - the AmigaOneG3SE board uses it.

Ummm.. I didn't say it was trivial to get this running,  but  it  has
been done before.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

--
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-4596-87  Fax: (+49)-8142-4596-88  Email: wd@denx.de
Where would we be without rhetorical questions?

** Sent via the linuxppc-embedded mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/

Re: Silicon Motion VGA controllers and PPC architecture

[Geir Frode Raanes]

On Wed, 12 Nov 2003, llandre wrote:

> I'm looking for a VGA controller to use with an embedded PPC405-based system.
> I had a look at the Silicon Motion chips (712/722) and they seem very
> suited for embedded applications.

Errr - may I ask what is special about this brand?
I believe ATI is the only manufacturer of VGA chips that actually
support alternative architectures, at least PowerPC[MAC].

 http://www.ati.com/products/embedded/overview.html

> Unfortunately the techical support claims that these chips, because the
> presence of x86 BIOS, support only the x86 architecture. Anybody can
> confirm this?

I once attempted to follow the flow of a x86 BIOS.
In other words, I disassembled it. It was intriguing for a while.
You might want to do the same thing with this expansion BIOS -
after all, you are only interested in the initialization sequence.

--
  ******************************************************
  Never ever underestimate the power of human stupidity.
  -Robert Anson Heinlein

		GeirFRS@INVALID.and.so.forth
  ******************************************************

** Sent via the linuxppc-embedded mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/

Re: Silicon Motion VGA controllers and PPC architecture

[llandre]

> > I'm looking for a VGA controller to use with an embedded PPC405-based
> system.
> > I had a look at the Silicon Motion chips (712/722) and they seem very
> > suited for embedded applications.
>
>Errr - may I ask what is special about this brand?

It seems these chips are the easiest to integrate in a PowerPC embedded
systems.
Laurent Mohin from Acterna confirmed it is possible to use them without
executing their x86 BIOS with a software emulator (U-Boot already includes
a driver that initializes the chip). See also his message in this thread.


Best regards,

llandre


** Sent via the linuxppc-embedded mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/